


Never Alone

by Killer_Queen



Series: The Basement [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captured, Fever, Friendship, Gen, Infection, Injured Loki, Loki Hurt, Loki locked up (again :( ), Natasha cares about Loki, Rescued
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 18:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18481807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Killer_Queen/pseuds/Killer_Queen
Summary: Natasha finds herself captured and locked up in a basement with Loki. She liked Loki well enough, but being trapped in the cold and wet was not ideal. And, to make matters worse, Loki was hurt.It was up to Natasha to help Loki survive until they were rescued. A man who had been alone for so long.





	1. Chapter 1

Natasha woke to darkness. And cold. She was terribly cold. And damp, she realised. And she ached all over. Wary of the darkness, she slowly sat up, trying to make sense of her surroundings. There was nothing. It was only then that she realised that she was blindfolded. Carefully, she reached up and undid the simple piece of black cloth tied around her head. Light flooded in, though not as much as she would like. The room around her was dim and wet, a basement. The walls were made of deteriorating concrete and the floor flooded by what seemed to be a badly leaking water pipe along the top of one wall. Moss grew around her, caking the floor around the one iron door leading out of the room. Something moved behind her and she quickly turned, the water sloshing around her. She saw a wet, dirty but familiar face.  
“Loki, what happened? How did we get here?” She asked. Loki shrugged, sitting up against a wall.  
“I’ve no idea. I assume the gas we breathed in was a sedative.” He said. Gas? She didn’t remember breathing in any gas. She only remembered being on the mission with Loki, getting cornered....yes, there had been gas, she remembered. She looked around again.  
“Where are we?” She asked.  
“My guess is that we are being held beneath a warehouse. Perhaps they want us for ransom.” Loki guessed, staring at the wall opposite. She realised he was shirtless and for the first time looked down at herself. Her clothes had been taken except for her underwear.....but she was covered by a green shirt that she remembered too well.  
“Take your shirt. You’ll get cold.” She said, shivering herself as she moved to remove it. Loki raised a hand to protest.  
“The cold doesn’t bother me as it does you. It protects you more than it protects me.” He said quietly, casting a look at her almost bare legs. Natasha sat for a moment, wishing Loki had more information. He shifted around uncomfortably......uncomfortably? She caught sight of his back as he tried to find a better position on the wet floor.  
“Loki!” She exclaimed, gesturing to the gaping stab wound near his hip.   
“What happened to you!?” She demanded as he turned around, trying to hide it.  
“It’s not important.” He said as he settled down against the wall again, though she saw him grimace as he put pressure on the wound.  
“It is important. You’re hurt....and it’s still bleeding.” She said.  
“Not bleeding as much now as it was at first. Trust me, I am perfectly fine.” He said, but she knew that he wasn’t.  
“Let me put something on it.....bandage it or something.”  
Loki gave her a look.  
“I’ve already tried. We have nothing available to us that could be used as a bandage in such an awkward place.” He said, finally admitting that he was hurt. He was right. The wound really was in too strange an angle to be bandaged, and she had nothing to stick on to cover it....  
“We need to get out of here.” She said. Loki shrugged.  
“I’ve tried. I’ve tried every way I can think of. I’ve tried the door and I’ve tried creating a distraction to trick them into unlocking it. Nothing works. We’ll have to wait it out.”  
Natasha thought of his bleeding wound, and knew that waiting it out wasn’t the best idea. But she moved into a comfier position in the muck.  
“Well, what should we do?” She asked, looking around.   
“I’ve been in prison before. I know ways to entertain myself.” Loki said.  
“Such as?”  
“Such as reading a book or playing catch with a small object, but as you see, we have neither of those things. I could write on the walls if I had a stone to scratch with, or I could make a ladder to climb on if I had a rope to tie to the pipes along the ceiling. But, as I said, we have none of those things.” He said, shrugging.  
“Then what do we do?”  
“We talk, I suppose. Talking was the one thing I missed during my solitude. Talking to myself would make me seem even crazier than I actually am.”  
Natasha smiled.  
“You don’t seem crazy to me.” She said. It was Loki’s turn to smile, though she could see the pain behind it.  
“Then you haven’t met me at all. Crazy is my area of expertise.”  
They talked.  
“Clint and I have worked together for years, been partners, been best friends for years. It’s just...I think he wants more, and I don’t.” Natasha sighed. She would never have thought she would have vented these deep feelings to anyone, let alone Loki.  
“Tell him no.” Loki said simply.  
“It’s not that easy.”  
“Yes it is. Simply tell him what you’ve told me if he tries to make an advance. Tell him you wish to remain friends.”  
“And you really think that’ll work on Clint?”  
“He doesn’t deserve you if he doesn’t respect your decisions. If he loves you, he will let you go.”  
“What makes you an expert on the matter?”  
“Trust me, I know some things. I have been in love before, you know. A foolish fantasy, a child’s dream. I’ve had to let go.”  
She knew she wasn’t going to get him to talk anymore about it.  
“Tell me something.” She said.  
“Tell you what?”  
“What pushed you and Thor apart? I know you’re close now, but before....What really put that rift between you?”   
Loki seemed to think for a moment.  
“The rift was always there, I suppose, but a fracture, not a break. I grew up in Thor’s shadow, reminded again and again that I was the younger son, always second best in the eyes of those who “mattered”. Thor never did anything to stop it. He enjoyed being the best.” He finally said, staring at his hands.   
“He still enjoys being the best.” Said Natasha. Loki gave a weary smile.  
“Yes, I suppose he does. But I suppose what really set us adrift was....Odin. His lies, his schemes, his terrible lust for a worthy heir. Odin lied to me my entire life. He told me I was something I wasn’t, and he trained me all throughout my childhood to hate...no, to loathe the very thing I really was. After his lies were uncovered and I found out who I was.....Well, Thor could never truly accept me after that, however many years we had been together as brothers. It was almost as though our entire childhood together meant nothing to him....at least for a while. Things happened. Time passed and we both did things we regret. We were near strangers by the time we came back to Earth together.”   
Natasha thought of the two cold men being housed at first grudgingly by Tony, how Thor had openly expressed his disapproval of Loki while Loki tried his hardest to find redemption and begin a new life, how Loki had sulked and been upset while he thought nobody was looking. Near strangers, but not quite. There was too much history there for strangers.  
“What brought you back together?” She asked.  
“I finally realised that my life was never going to be the same. I accepted that Odin’s lies had ruined my first happy existence and decided to start making another. I stopped thinking of Thor as my brother and tried to think of him as the stranger he’d become. A stranger who didn’t know me. A fresh friendship to make. Eventually, we reformed the bonds that were broken by time and truth.”   
Natasha was silent for a few moments.  
“Wow, that’s.....that’s really deep, Loki.” She eventually muttered. Loki shrugged in a semi-casual semi-painful way.  
“It’s life.” He said.  
Life, such a fragile, futile thing.

The next day, a small tray of bread was shoved through a hatch in the bottom of the door.   
“Distribute it evenly between the two of you.” A gruff voice ordered before the sound of footsteps moving away echoed.  
“I’ll do it.” Loki said, moving with a barely audible groan before Natasha could get up to get the tray. He picked up the bread and tore it in half, giving one piece to Natasha, who immediately noticed that her piece was noticeably a lot larger than his. But she ate it and was relieved that he ate his. She knew she couldn’t argue against Loki. She would always lose such a debate.

The day after that, Loki could barely stand for the pain.   
“Show me.” Natasha ordered, and silenced his protests with a look. He turned so she could see the wound.  
“Loki, it’s getting infected. We need to do something.” She said, looking around for the umpteenth time for an escape route. Loki shrugged, but didn’t speak, and resumed his position next to the wall.   
“Loki, why don’t you care? Why don’t you care about yourself?”  
Loki shrugged again.  
“My job is to look after others. It always has been, in a small way. I had to look after Thor when we were children, for his irrational thinking often got him into trouble in places he didn’t want to be. I had to look after an entire army once. I had to look after Stark when he was too drunken to even remember his own name. Now I have to look after you.” He said, closing his eyes.  
“I can look after myself, Loki. You look after yourself for once.”  
Loki shook his head in an argument she could never fight. 

The next day, he could barely sit up. She watched as he slowly slid further and further down the wall, until he was lying in the slush of dirty water. She watched as he cried out with every move, whimpered at every movement of the water. She felt his forehead. He was burning up. He shouldn’t have been burning up in that freezing room. Things were bad. Loki didn’t have the strength to open his eyes anymore. His voice was little more than a whisper.  
“It hurts.” Was all he could manage to say through his dry and choked throat.  
“I know, Loki, I know it hurts.” She whispered, tears flowing down her cheeks. She had never felt more helpless in her life. Loki opened his mouth again.  
“Let me die.” He pleaded. She took his hand and shook it gentle, but stopped when he cried out again. She just held it.  
“No, Loki, you are not going to die. I won’t let you. You’ve spent your entire life looking after others, and that’s not right. It’s my turn to look after you.” She said. She tore a piece off the shirt she still wore and used it to wet down his face. She used another piece to clean out the wound after she slowly turned him over. It was a yucky green at the edges, but it looked better after she cleaned it. Then she did the only other thing she could do. She talked. But not about her own future this time.  
“When you get out of here, Loki, and after you’re all fixed up, obviously, you’re going to promise me that you’re going to start caring about yourself.” She whispered, stroking his hand.  
“You’re going to come out of the stupid shell you’ve built and you’re going to find a nice girl who loves you. You’re going to tell her “You’re the one for me” and all that other sloppy stuff. You’re going to ask her to marry you in the most dramatic way you can think of, because drama is practically your middle name.”  
She imagined what a future without Avengers would look like, a future where each of them had families and lovers to protect.  
“You’ll have little kids together, tiny little Lokis with your smile and your crazy views on the universe......Well, I’m getting ahead, aren’t I? How about you just focus on getting better?”  
An eery silence on Loki’s part. She tried to imagine what his children would look like. Just like him, she hoped. She had always seen Loki as undoubtedly good looking. She was sure everyone saw him that way. There had even been a bit of jealousy from Tony over the years.....Any children Loki created would be beautiful no matter who their mother was. Yes, in ten years time, maybe fifteen, she’d be “Auntie Natasha” to two or three troublemakers, causing mischief with Loki not far behind them. Then her heart sank. Loki was different. Much older than her, much older than he looked. He might not be ready for children for fifty years, perhaps a hundred. By that time he would still be young and perfect, but she wouldn’t be. She realised that there was a high chance that she would never meet the children she’d been imagining. She drove those thoughts from her mind by trying to imagine other children, Tony and Pepper’s, Clint’s, Steve’s, maybe even Bruce’s. Then she dared to cast a thought to herself. What would her own children look like? Did she even want kids? She wasn’t sure. Yes, when the time was right, she did. When she knew that she wasn’t going to be taken away from them, knew they weren’t going to be snatched up and swept away from her. When she was done with being a hero. In ten years, twenty years, when she grew tired of the gunfire and secret missions. But ten or twenty years might be too late......  
She realised that she might not see any of those imaginary kids. She and Loki were still trapped, one weak with cold and one dying of fever, one soaked to the skin and one unable to move due to agony. The chances didn’t look good. She turned back to the poor pale man that was fragile and sick Loki. Before she started thinking of his children, he had to survive.

Loki shivered all through that night, or at least what she thought was night. He shook with more than cold. He shook with pain and weakness, and perhaps a little fear. He was deeply asleep but at the same time seemed strangely aware of her. The single white light in the centre of the ceiling never turned off, but flickered and faltered often enough. She could still see him clearly, his body continuously shaking. She pulled him close, feeling his shirtless skin soft and wet against her.  
“You’re not alone, Loki. I’m here.” She whispered. And she just sat there, holding him until his shivers slowly faded and he fell into an even deeper slumber. His deep breathing was unnerving but also comforting in a way. At least he was still breathing.

She found him sitting up against the wall again the next day. She breathed a silent but huge sigh of relief. So it wasn’t the infection spreading (yet), just a fever. Maybe from a bug he’d picked up in the dirty water.....Could Loki pick up bugs? Either way, he seemed at least a little better now. He was.....asleep, she realised, sleeping propped up against the wall. At least it seemed to be proper sleep and not the unconscious struggle of the previous days. He looked terrible, though. His long hair was unbrushed, lank and dirty. His pants were soaked and his bare chest covered in yucky pieces of muck from the water. She knew she didn’t look much better. Her feet where starting to ache from the constant water, the skin starting to peel away. She’d noticed her own wounds, too, a few scratches on her legs, but nothing serious. Nothing to suggest that she had even been attacked by the same people who’d left Loki with a gash in his side. She remembered it happening, now that the fogginess in her brain had faded. Just before they were cornered, before they were gassed......A knife, shiny from polishing and sharpened too......Coming towards her......Loki had pushed her aside and she’d watched as the knife sunk into his flesh instead. Loki was....always looking after her. Even she had to admit that his crazy and overly suicidal tendencies in battle were cute and heroic sometimes.....She’d never tell him that, though. What would Loki say if she called him cute? Something she’d never forget, she was sure. Loki had a way with words....  
“Five days.” Loki muttered, evidently no longer asleep.  
“What?” She asked.  
“Five days. That’s how long we have been here.” Loki repeated, his eyes still closed. Five days? She was losing track of time? When was the last time they’d been given food and fresh water? The basement also stunk....she tried not to think about it.  
“Sixth day might be lucky. You never know, we might get rescued today.” She said, trying to stay positive. Loki gave a shrug that told her that he was close to caring about nothing but the pain that was still etched onto every feature of his face. 

They did get rescued. The next day. She couldn’t believe it when Loki stood up to face the others; a worried Tony, a too calm Clint and a concerned Steve. But Loki stood, the first time she’d seen him stand in days.  
“Wow....you both look terrible.” Tony said.  
“Loki’s hurt.” Natasha said quickly, before he could open his mouth to tell them he was fine and hide his wound. Clint looked her up and down, standing in her knickers and a soaked green shirt that fitted her more than it should have.   
“You’ve both been through hell. Come on, let’s go. Bruce can look you both over.” He said. They started moving, trudging slowly. For a minute, Natasha thought that Loki might actually manage it...  
Loki’s world spun, the pain becoming too much. He no longer knew what to do with his stupid too-long limbs. His legs felt like lumps of clay, so he let them stop. He let himself sway.....and fall. Falling was something he tried not to do often, but near unconsciousness stopped him from catching himself.  
Natasha saw Loki fall and collapse, caught under the armpits by Steve and Tony just in time. How many times had those two guys had to catch injured friends? Too many to count. Loki was still awake, but only just. Hunger and the still present fever were eating away at him, along with the inevitable infection that she knew was slowly spreading through him. Steve and Tony started carrying him between them slowly out of the horrible hell.....Tony was undeniably a shortie. Clint would have been better to help Steve balance a tall person like Loki. But Clint was beside her.....Taking her into his arms, carrying her.  
“I can walk for myself.” She said, and even though she was tired and weak, she knew it was true.  
“Natasha, let me-” Clint began. She knew what he was going to say. Let me help, let me carry you because you’re a woman and that’s what it’s like in the movies, let me show you that I’m capable.  
“Clint, no.” She said. Reluctantly, he put her back down on her own two feet. Loki was right, she thought as they kept walking, slower now that the other two men were half dragging Loki’s feet across the floor. He was right. Saying no was easier than she’d first thought.

After the concerned examination of Bruce and after the unavoidable trip to the medical base, she had time to breathe again. Then she fell asleep. The bed was unfamiliar, set up for her in the outpatients wing of the base, because they wanted to “observe her over night”. She didn’t like it, but sleep came before she could fight it.

The next day, she went to see Loki, in another part of the base. Emergency antibiotics and about a million other drugs had been administered, his wound cleaned and dressed properly, and they said he was going to be okay, well enough to be home in a few days after they’d given him some nutrients. She was relieved, but felt strange. She and Loki had talked about forbidden things in that basement, things they’d both only talked about with the fear that they might not have lived to talk about them to anyone else. She’d always liked Loki well enough, after he reformed and redeemed himself, joined them, but being stuck with him down there had somehow given her a deeper bond with him that she knew would never fade. She wondered if he felt it too. He opened his eyes slightly as she sat next to his bed.  
“Thank...thank-you.” He muttered, his voice still weak.  
“For what?” She asked, leaning closer.  
“For...for not leaving me.” He whispered, closing his eyes again as a tiny tear fell from her eyes. She decided not to point out that she couldn’t have gone anywhere anyway.  
“Loki, we care about you, we love you. You’ll never be alone again, I promise.” She whispered. For the first time in days, she saw Loki’s lips curve into a smile.


	2. Give me some feedback!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please give me some feedback on this fanfic!

Hey guys! I’m posting this about a month after the initial fanfic (posting this on 16th Of May 2019). Can you please give me some feedback on this fanfic? Please tell me what you liked about it so I can write more! Constructive criticism is welcome, but please be FRIENDLY.


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